


Stranded

by feyrelay



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: 500 Words Challenge, Captivity, Coercion, Guilt, Hannibal Lecter Is His Own Warning, Hannibal Lecter is a Cannibal, M/M, Mental Instability, On the Run, Post-Canon, Someone Help Will Graham, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:07:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26641921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feyrelay/pseuds/feyrelay
Summary: Mini character study. 500 word challenge.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18





	Stranded

Hannibal palms down over Will's shoulder blade, a proprietary facsimile of a massage. Will rests his head on the pillow and doesn't allow himself to think of precise cuts of what he's always figured for pork, and the practiced way Hannibal coaxes the meat to its tenderest state, before searing.

There is not room in his head—or between the insistent knocks of his pulse—to think of such things. There is especially no spare blood for that, not when Hannibal drops compromises in Will's ear from behind and over him, a chatty, blanketing warmth.

"Tell me, Will. What would make it alright? I must make it alright."

They shift together, as if it delights Hannibal to move if and only if Will comes with him. "I don't know. Nothing. You _kill_ people. You kill people and then you serve them to me. To others!" 

Hannibal hums. "Are you jealous? I could stop with the dinner parties. We don't need friends, not really."

Will almost chokes. He presses his face to the relative safety of the pillow. He is too tired, too medicated, too hard for this. "Jesus. Am I- jealous, _really_? I'm not jealous. I'm afraid. I'm afraid of you. I'm afraid of _me,_ if I allow you to do this."

A pause. Hannibal freezes, unpredatorlike for a long moment. It's disorienting for Will until Hannibal speaks. "If you _allow_ me?"

Will plays dead. The warmth leaves his back, though Hannibal does not leave their perfectly outfitted bed in their perfectly outfitted beach house on their perfectly outfitted, private beach with its craggy rocks that discourage escape. Or investigation.

"I only meant," Will starts.

"You only meant that I do everything I do to please you or to keep us safe, and that murder without sense displeases you. I know. I know you understand," Hannibal tells him. "It's kind and good of you, that you understand me. You know I will not stop and yet you continue to love me, even if you will not join me."

It chafes, the unsubtle instruction, Hannibal's forgiveness. Will blames his next words on that. "But what if," he begins, rolling over and sitting up now that he is free to do so. "What if we kept you away from the rude, the ungrateful, the selfish and the sloppy and the wasteful and the tasteless. What if we raised our own Wagyu? Surely you could-"

Hannibal clicks his tongue. "What if the sky fell, Will? What if you simply stopped being afraid?"

And Will can't, at that moment and for the life of him, with his fingers trembling and aching to reach out and check for the monster beside him in bed, think of a rebuttal.

Trust Hannibal to twist the knife. "Is that what you dream about, then?" he asks, almost tenderly. "Do you dream of an impossible life? Do you dream of a world where I am good?" 

_No,_ Will thinks privately. 

_I dream of a world where I am better._


End file.
